October 16, 2022

Lighting the Christ Candle

Welcome and Announcements

Called to Worship:

L: As the rains pour from heaven, soaking the earth that it may produce good things…. P: So God pours love upon us, that we, too, may produce goodness, justice and peace. L: We have been blessed with many gifts and talents. P: God desires that we use these gifts and talents for healing, peace, and hope. L: Come, let us worship and celebrate the mighty love and power of God. P: Praise be to God who has blessed us in so many ways. AMEN.

 

Hymn: 685 How firm a foundation

Prayer of Adoration

O God, who has created your children to be free, we attest in word and deed that you are our God and we are your people. From our earliest days you have called us forth to freeing and redeeming action for justice everywhere in the world.

O God of Exodus and the Burning Bush, of the Prophets and of Jesus, we hear your powerful calling to be your servants in the service of all those who are oppressed.

At every turn we hear your voice in the cries of the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, and the broken, for you made yourself one with those who seek justice, freedom, and peace. We share a vision, a promise, and a yearning for the day of your reign, O God.

We pledge ourselves now to pursue relentlessly that living, breathing justice which transforms persons and peoples. To your will for justice we recommit ourselves and pledge ourselves, our funds, our actions.

Through Christ we pray confessing now our failures, so that we may be freed to live your will.

 

Unison Prayer of Confession:

Holy God You called all that is into being and offered humanity life in all its fullness.

Yet we have allowed good relationships to be broken.

We have become distant from you and our neighbour.

At times we have failed to speak out for justice, leaving the voiceless without an advocate.

To all who fall short of God’s glory you offer pardon and peace. We confess that we have fallen short of your glory, and we trust in your mercy. Amen

Assurance of Pardon

God is just and forgiving.

God receives us as we are,

lifts us up and calls us again to

be people upholding justice and peace.

Receive God’s pardon and peace,

knowing that all sins are forgiven

Thanks be to God!

The Peace

The peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

 

Hymn: 674 In the bulb there is a flower

Scripture Lessons:

Genesis 32: 22-81 Psalm 121 Responsively Luke 18: 1-8

Sermon: Don’t give up

In my hometown there is a bridge, that I remember was always orange. At some point the bridge was repainted in the standard silver that all bridges come in.

That was the beginning of a long campaign to have the bridge repainted orange.

Numerous petitions were circulated to that effect. I might have signed a few myself. Letters were written. The mayors and council members were subjected to numerous discussions about the matter. This went on for decades, all to no effect.

At one point the city put up a sign by the bridge stating that it was formerly orange. That became necessary likely because whenever anyone asked for directions they were told, “go up Riverbend Road, cross the orange bridge and it will be a twenty minute drive to the entrance to Sproat Lake on the left.

I wonder how many tourists were half-way to Tofino before they figured out they “missed the orange bridge”…

Last week it was announced that the bridge will once again be painted orange. Sometimes you fight City Hall and win. All it takes is persistence.

The Scripture Lessons today remind us that when we pray, we are to be persistent. It is when we don’t give up, that we see the answers to our prayers.

We began with the story of Jacob, returning to his homeland and being worried about the welcome that he would receive from his brother. He had a reason to be concerned. He had treated his brother badly.

They had always fought, beginning in the womb, and the rivalry simply escalated as they grew. The difficulties became intolerable when Jacob convinced (conned?) Esau into selling him his right to

inherit. Having stolen the inheritance, he then tricked his dying father to give him the blessing.

That left Esau without an inheritance and without a blessing. The bitterness was such that Jacob fled to the land where his cousin Laban lived.

But now, he was coming back. With his wives, his oxen, his sheep and his camels–he was coming to his ancestral home to claim the inheritance. Understandably he was unsure of the welcome that he would receive.

As he slept the night before crossing into the land, Jacob had a dream. Let us listen again, this time from the MSG

In this dream Jacob … and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he couldn’t get the best of Jacob as they wrestled, he deliberately threw Jacob’s hip out of joint.

26 The man said, “Let me go; it’s daybreak.”

Jacob said, “I’m not letting you go ’til you bless me.”

27 The man said, “What’s your name?”

He answered, “Jacob.”

28 The man said, “But no longer. Your name is no longer Jacob. From now on it’s Israel (God-Wrestler); you’ve wrestled with God and you’ve come through.”

29 Jacob asked, “And what’s your name?”

The man said, “Why do you want to know my name?” And then, right then and there, he blessed him.

30 Jacob named the place Peniel (God’s Face) because, he said, “I saw God face-to-face and lived to tell the story!”

31-32 The sun came up as he left Peniel, limping because of his hip. MSG

Was it a dream? Did he wrestle with a man or with God?

Wrestling with God is often an apt description of what it is like to persist in prayer. When what we pray for is important, we persist, we do not give up. We seek blessing or justice, and perhaps both as we continue day in, day out, year after year, if need be, in prayer with God.

If anyone needed a blessing and justice it was Jacob at that point. So, Jacob did not give up, and would not let go until he got the blessing that he needed in order to claim the inheritance and fulfill what God was calling him to do.

As it is so often in Scripture this was not just a story about Jacob; this was a story about all of Israel and subsequently all believers. We are reminded that we are to persistently, and perhaps stubbornly, refuse to let go of the requests we make to God.

But we are also reminded, that we like Jacob, must be willing to be changed as we wrestle with God in prayer; because attaining the blessing, or achieving the justice is worth the sacrifice.

This is such a vivid description of a Biblical model for prayer. God rewards those who fight for the heavenly blessing and who show the strength of their faith as they do not give up.

Sometimes though, we can feel like we are banging on Heaven’s door and no one is home. The poet John Donne says that it is like our prayers falling on God’s deaf ears.

Commentators point out that we see Biblical evidence of this kind of praying when we look at the prayers of lament. Time and time again the prophets ask, “how long O Lord?” Time and time again the people ask, “how can we sing the songs of our faith in exile?”

And yet, they don’t stop asking. How long O Lord, how long? Months, years, decades, even as long as a generation, the people keep coming back to God and demanding to know, when O God will you answer?

People of faith do not give up; rather they trust that God is merciful and true to his Word and that in time he will answer. God rewards those who won’t let go.

We see this persistence in the woman who keeps pounding on the door of the unjust judge, and in spite of his refusal to hear her case she keeps demanding that he give her justice.

The commentator Garcia writes, that her persistence speaks to the divinely rooted call to passion and justice as a demonstration of faithful living.

He reminds us that our persistence in prayer is a clear, intimate, inseparable connection between prayer and justice. He points out

that prayer which is active and dynamic is rooted in the mysterious relationship between human and God.

We have to wonder though, why does it sometimes take persistence in prayer before we see the answer?

I think that the answer lies in the truth that when we pray it changes us.

Do you recall a few weeks ago we looked at the need to pray for others, even those whom we disagree with or despise, in the knowledge that they are a person whom God loves.

Sometimes I think that the real danger in these prayers is that it changes our hearts. Our prayers for those whom God loves, changes our hearts so that they are people whom we love with the love of God. Quite frankly there are people that I don’t want to love, and yet….

I have wrestled with that call to love and that need to pray with God’s love for all people.

There are judges, leaders, rulers in this world who are not fulfilling the calling of their position. Like this unjust judge, they don’t care about the people and their needs. They don’t care if what they do hurts the people they are meant to serve.

We see it all the time, in rulers around the world or in our own country. And yet we are called to pray for them, for the good of the people and the good of the world.

In Deuteronomy chapter 16 we are reminded that all leaders are called to pursue justice and ONLY justice. In Micah, we are reminded that we are all of us called to live a life that is about the pursuit of justice.

Garcia’s commentary points out that pursuing justice, especially in relationship to the widows and the orphans and other vulnerable peoples in our population, is a necessary part of what it means to live ethically in relationship to God and with the world and the people around us. Justice is central to living in persistent prayer with God.

As I considered this, it occurred to me that how we live justice is what we will be judged for. This is firmly stated in the parable of the sheep and the goats, where Jesus says:

‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:

I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me.’

37-40 “Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling

the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’ (Matt 25: MSG)

In his commentary Dunham writes: Persistent prayer for justice is important because such prayers can work in our own hearts and minds.

Again we are reminded that prayer is how we will be permanently altered. Not in a hip out of joint, like Jacob, but in a heart that is realigned to love as God loves.

The commentator Roybayo points out that persistent prayer is a sign that faith is active in the world and then he points out that “prayer without action is meaningless. Prayer and action go together.”

I was reminded of the prayer in our hymnbook, The things good Lord that we pray for, give us the grace to labour for.

The woman who kept going night after night to pound on the door of the unjust judge learned that. It was work to get him to listen. She gave up the warmth of her home. She gave up sleep. She risked her life, as a woman alone on the streets at night. Yet she knew that what she gave up was worth it in her pursuit of justice.

What happened? The unjust judge, reasoned to himself that he had better answer her request because she wasn’t going to give up. He answered her prayer just to get rid of her.

That begs the question, did he really get rid of her? Or did the empowerment of that experience cause her to help other women who had been unjustly treated in the fight for the justice they needed?

This is why Amnesty International continues to work for justice around the world, and why their members send endless letters on behalf of those unjustly imprisoned.

This is why young women in Iran are burning their hijabs as they stand in solidarity against a regime that denies women their rights.

This is why relief agencies both in the church and secular world fight for justice, peace, and basic human rights of food, shelter and water.

This is why we grow a garden, and bring food for the food bank, have a monthly mission offering and touch our community in countless ways. How we act, brings justice.

This is also why we continue to petition City Hall, the Provincial Government and the Parliament about those matters of justice that pertain to the homeless, the addicted, the mentally ill and the list goes on.

In the greater scheme of things, orange bridges are not a matter of great importance. The colour of the bridge is not a matter of life or death, but it does teach us, that sometimes City Hall, Judges, Leaders, and Politicians will listen to the persistent request of the people. When we add to those persistent requests the

powerful life altering prayers that come from our hearts, surely in time even the most unjust among them can and will do the right thing to bring justice.

We are all called to prayer, human striving, tenacity, faith and the relentless pursuit of justice.

The things good Lord that we pray for, give us the grace to labour for. Amen

 

Hymn: 757 Come sing, O Church, in joy

Offering Doxology Offertory Prayer

 

Gathering Prayer Requests Prayers of the People and the Lord’s Prayer

At the words: the things Good lord that we pray for,

Please respond: Give us the grace to labour for.

Holy One of mystery and power, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below, keeping covenant and steadfast love with all who walk before you with pure and upright hearts. Fill our lives with your glory, fill our hearts with your mercy fill our lives with your justice.

the things Good lord that we pray for,… Lord of compassion, mercy and justice, Many have come to you seeking compassion

and you have graciously shown it to them. We too come seeking your compassion For our needs, our pains, our illnesses, For our friends, families, and coworkers, For our neighbors, our communities, and our world.

the things Good lord that we pray for,… Lord we all need you to shower us with your compassion for our neighbours, friends and family and for those who are ill:.

Neighbours/ friends/family/healing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the things Good lord that we pray for,… Lord, many is the person who has come asking for justice

and you have generously provided justice in their lives. We too come asking for your justice For ourselves when we have we been treated unjustly. For those who have been treated with injustices. For those whose countries show no justice. Lord we need you to roll down your justice for all.

For those hurting places in the world/unjust leaders

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the things Good lord that we pray for, …

We pray for those elected in the civic election. May they remember they are servants and may the seek the ways that bring peace, prosperity and justice in our town.

We pray for the Provincial Government. May they bring about justice and homes for the homeless, treatment for the drug addicted, and counsellors for the mentally ill.

We pray for the Parliament. May they seek solutions to the current financial crisis in Canada. Show them how to serve the needs of all people, so that we may live fruitfully and faithfully in this land you have given us.

the things Good lord that we pray for, …

 

We thank you O God in the name of Jesus who taught us to pray, saying: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever. Amen

 

 

Hymn: 102 ATBS I will sing of the mercies of the Lord

Charge and Benediction unison

May the living word of the Lord dwell with you. May it live through you. May it fill your thoughts and deeds. May it fill your mouth with God’s message of love. May it sustain you in good times and bad. May it equip you for a ministry of peace and hope!

Sung Blessing 457 Now thank we all our God

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices, who wondrous things has done, in whom God’s world rejoices, who from our mother’s arms has blessed us on our way, with countless gifts of love and still is ours today.